Smart SOHOs Don't Do Raid!

[Hobbs]

Hello everyone.

First of all congratulations for this super website!
I am a newbie to this forum and a novice with respect to NAS. I really appreciate the wealth of information provided here for someone like me.

Outline of problem: I have a Time Capsule on which I was wirelessly backing up my Mac laptops using Time Machine (500 GB capacity). Now we have added an iMac that has a 500 GB hard drive and we need a bigger backup storage option.

For Time Machine backups at least 2x the Hard Drive capacity is suggested: This would mean 2 x (160+120+500)= 1,560 GB. Round it off to 2 TB. Apple recommends to use a single volume to back up all Macs.

For bootable backups 120% capacity is suggested: 1.2 x (160+120+500)= 936 GB). Round it off to 1 TB.

Possible solutions:

a) One option would be to attach an USB hard drive (2 TB) to the Time Capsule.

b)An alternative is to attach a NAS to my network. I was considering the new Synology 210j or 410j.

With the 410j, I thought I would go with 2 x 2TB drives initially and later expand it as I began to fill up the drives.

Alternatively I could buy the 210j. Start with 2 TB, add another 2TB later; followed by the second 210j to back up the first one.

c) A third option would be to attach an USB drive directly to the iMac (I was considering the Lacie External Hard Disk 2 TB).

But then I read about 'Smart SOHOs Don't Do Raid'.

Now I am somewhat confused and not sure how to proceed.

Any suggestions will be appreciated.

Thanks in advance

 

[thiggins]

Backup strategy basically depends on how much "insurance" you want to buy and how fast you need to restore data.

In your case, the Time Capsule or NAS is not serving as the primary data store. It's backing up multiple clients. So a drive failure in the Time Capsule results in a loss of the centralized backup, but not your primary data.

The Smart SOHO article was written to make one primary point: RAID is not a substitute for backup.

Any of the alternatives you describe would do the job. I'd take the least expensive approach, i.e. add a drive to the Time Capsule.

 

[Hobbs]

Backup strategy basically depends on how much "insurance" you want to buy and how fast you need to restore data.

In your case, the Time Capsule or NAS is not serving as the primary data store. It's backing up multiple clients. So a drive failure in the Time Capsule results in a loss of the centralized backup, but not your primary data.

The Smart SOHO article was written to make one primary point: RAID is not a substitute for backup.

Any of the alternatives you describe would do the job. I'd take the least expensive approach, i.e. add a drive to the Time Capsule.

Thank you for your input. That is what I did. I ordered a 2 TB HD for plugging into the Time Capsule. Once again a wonderful site and sage advice.
Cheers and happy holidays!

 

[kfortier5]

RAID 1 and Backups

First post. Love the website. Some very, very helpful information here. And so thorough and well written. Nice work.

I know you recommend against using RAID 1 as a backup solution, but I'm wondering if it would work well in my situation.

I only need about 500 GB of backup space. I have one 500 GB HDD that I was going to pair with another of equal capacity. I am planning on dropping both in a NAS HDD enclosure. I would like to use the NAS as a one-stop-shop for all my files -- using it as a primary storage device for all network clients. I don't have more than 350 GB of data, so I was hoping to use RAID 1 to protect my data, as opposed to going the traditional backup/system image route.

I know you are particularly concerned with theft and flood. These are not concerns of mine. But you do make an excellent point about other NAS component failure. I would not be able to function for 2 weeks without access to my computer files.

MY QUESTION: If a component of the NAS fails, would I be able to remove one of the drives, connect it to an open SATA port on my PC, and have access to the data that way? Or will I only be able to access the data through another working NAS?

If I would be able to remove one of the drives and have access to all my data, are there any other reasons why I should not use RAID as a backup (aside from the other things mentioned in your article, which, as I said, are not of concern to me)?

Thanks in advance!

 

[zurge]

@kfortier5

Your ability to have access to the drive located in the NAS is dependent on a few things:

1. What went wrong with the NAS

If both drives are damaged due to a power supply failure or RAID card failure then no, you wouldn't be able to do what you wanted. On the other hand, a power supply or RAID card could go bad and not effect any of your drives too. It is a bit of a crap shoot. There are scenarios where you could access your data using the spare drive and there are scenarios were you wouldn't.

2. What type of filesystem the NAS uses

You just need to make sure that the NAS filesystem is something that you can read if you connected the drive to a computer. I know PROMISE has some NAS units that have a proprietary filesystem that is unique to their NAS units, for example.


I hope that this is of some help.

 

[Deleted member 28741]

Still against RAID?

I use a 4 bay Buffalo Quad NAS running Raid 10 as a place to store consolidated backups. I switch it on then copy the data and then switch it off.

I also have a 2 bay FireWire raid 1 for day to day iTunes use.

The computers are backed up by time machine hourly .. And there is also an automatic clone made of the main iMac 4 times a week in case the internal drive fails. I tied restoring a NAS time machine backup and the results weren't good.

I also have external HDD to store photos -one for day to day use and another that is disconnected and stored in a drawer .. It gets files updated after a major photo shoot.

Lastly there is an external HDD stored securely off site with all the important stuff.

I found the NAS more troublesome than its worth .. Several times it tells me there is a disc error but then the error disappears ( or I have to rebuild the raid). That's why it's switched off most of the time. Since Netflix started I haven't bothered streaming my own movies .. Either from iTunes or the NAS.

Problem is .. Now that I know which is a "good one" through this site I am likely to buy another

 

[Dennis Wood]

Hobbs, it is more space efficient to start with 3 drives in RAID 5, allowing a fourth drive later for expansion in four drive unit. If you start with 2, you're mirroring, so adding a third drive will not integrate into a mirror, you'd likely have to move your data off, add a drive, and reconfigure in RAID 5. Easier to just start that way.

The QNAP units we have in use have been flawless...5 units, 2 new and 3 older units running 24/7 for last 5 years. The distribution of Linux they run has proven extremely reliable. These NAS units are an integral part of our backup strategy. We rarely use esata or USB external disks, nor am I fan of them. Polar, two x 2 bay NAS units and you're done. A decent NAS should run for months with zero errors or issues, providing it's UPS connected.

RAID is not backup...RAID is redundancy in a disk array. What a NAS, (which should 100% be configured in a RAID array!!) is though, is the perfect host for your backup images. We use storagecraft which saves full and incremental images, allowing bare metal restores any failed workstations. All backups are stored on a NAS, and all restores are done from the network using a recovery boot USB key. This recovery environment allows you to load network drivers if required..therefore 100% reliable method of "bare" metal restore.

You can do exactly the same with a windows 8.1 OS boot disk. If your workstations are all backed up to to a RAID array using Windows backup, you can recover the same way, "bare metal" over the network.

If your NAS has server functions in your situation, then you 100% need to backup the data on it. The easiest way to do this is another NAS, or RSYNC to a windows box.

The whole thing is simple if you follow a few simple rules.

1. Ensure that at minumum, all of your data exists in two locations. Ideally the 2nd is offsite. NAS via rsync makes this simple to do.

2. Make sure that you have a rotation schedule, or at least a plan that has multiple backups saved. If you acquire an encrypting virus, and then back up these files to your only snapshot, you're done.

3. Automate it, and make sure failures result in an email or similar.

 

[kamina]

Don't know if it's still the case, but qnap used to use a custom filesystem (ext3 with extensions) that prevented mounting it on a normal computer if your nas fails for example. They did have a live cd, but that had to be downloaded from a really slow server in asia (took hours).

 

[stevech]

I don't know about QNAP, but my Synology DSM4.3 NAS, with two drives, each a separate volume (one as time backup), are linux file systems. I have a freeware utility for Windows 7 that will mount and read these drives if/when I need to. Both the internal drives and the NAS-formatted external USB3 drive. I don't use FAT32 on the USB3 drive due to low speeds with FAT.

This is protection should the NAS get stolen or the mainboard/power supply smokes.

 

[Deleted member 28741]

Xfs

Buffalo uses XFS file system ..

I am Really not sure how to extract the data from a RAID array should the box fail... And that's why I prefer external USB or FireWire HDD.

I bought the raid box initially as I thought I would stream my movie collection over the network and it seemed to make sense... But since Netflix I haven't bothered ( they have a better collection than me?).

The raid turned into a backup dository but after reading the original post even that doesn't seem secure

 

[kamina]

I don't know about QNAP, but my Synology DSM4.3 NAS, with two drives, each a separate volume (one as time backup), are linux file systems. I have a freeware utility for Windows 7 that will mount and read these drives if/when I need to. Both the internal drives and the NAS-formatted external USB3 drive. I don't use FAT32 on the USB3 drive due to low speeds with FAT.

This is protection should the NAS get stolen or the mainboard/power supply smokes.

Since the devices run Linux it's probably safest to use a Linux filesystem as it's most tested and has better performance. However in my case I found qnap had actually modified ext3 so that other linux distros (or tools for windows / osx) could not use the disk.

Again, this was several years ago, it might be that they are now using an unmodified filesystem as they should.

 

[Deleted member 28741]

Thanks >- Going with EXT3

Thanks guys...

I found an EXT FS utility for Mac so I can read the USB backup drive whatever happens to the RAID box.

The Buffalo's are causing me some grief so I might be changing to a more reliable brand soon.